51 pages • 1-hour read
Losing Hope
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Chapters 29-36Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 29 Summary
As Holder speaks to Daniel by his locker, Breckin walks up and confronts Holder about his actions regarding Sky. Everyone watches Holder—known for being quick to fight—but he holds nothing against Breckin and agrees with him that Sky hurts because of him. Holder tells Breckin that Sky is lucky to have him for a friend and walks away from the fight.
In a letter to Les, Holder writes out the pros and cons of telling Sky the truth about her past. Under the “pros” column, he says that Hope and her family deserve to know what happened to her. There are many more “cons”: the knowledge would ruin her current life; she was never happy as a child, but she is happy now; she would never forgive Holder for keeping her past from her, and she would learn that her birthday is wrong. Hope’s real birthday is months away, which means she is not yet 18.
Holder again ponders Karen’s role in the kidnapping. He writes a new pros and cons list relating to whether or not he should be with Sky. He ends the letter having come to the decision that Sky is best without him.
Chapter 30 Summary
Holder arrives at Breckin’s house. When Breckin’s mother answers the door, she seems suspicious of Holder. Breckin tells his mom that Holder is not there for his “gay parts,” and that seems to settle her discomfort. In Breckin’s room, Holder gives Breckin an e-reader to give Sky for her upcoming birthday, asking him to keep the source of the gift a secret. Confused, Breckin questions why Holder and Sky can’t be together. He says that he liked seeing them together. Holder refuses to tell him more.
In a letter to Les, Holder discusses playing video games with Breckin the night before, enjoying Breckin’s company more than he expected. He thinks that Les would have liked him. Both Holder and Breckin agreed not to tell Sky that they met as it would be too difficult for her.
Chapter 31 Summary
Holder takes Daniel to Breckin’s house and introduces them. They play Modern Warcraft and enjoy playful banter. Daniel describes a series of make-out sessions in the closet of the high school that led to sex. It was the best sex he ever had but he doesn’t know who the girl was because it was dark and they never spoke. Daniel and Breckin then goad Holder into going over to Sky’s and finally kissing her. Upset that they don’t truly understand the situation and the complications involved, Holder asks Daniel to take him home and storms out to wait by the car.
Chapter 32 Summary
Still angry at Daniel and Breckin, Holder writes a letter to Les expressing his feelings. After closing the notebook, he throws it across the room. Seeing the notebook spread on the floor, he notices Les’s handwriting rather than his own scrawled across the open pages. Eyeing it closer, he sees that Les wrote a suicide letter to him and slams the notebook shut, once again throwing it across the room. He vows never to read it. The only thing he can think to do is to run to Sky’s house.
Chapter 33 Summary
Holder climbs through Sky’s bedroom window and settles himself into bed with her. Her body stiffens beside him, and he realizes that she is afraid of him because of what he has put her through. He acknowledges her anger and fear but tells her that she needs him and he needs her. They kiss for a few minutes, lost in one another. Holder, overwhelmed by his feelings of love, vows to never walk away from Sky or Hope again.
The next morning, while Holder cooks her breakfast, Sky—searching for a reason for his erratic behavior—asks him how long he has been using drugs. Though Holder cannot apologize, he tells Sky that he does not use drugs and says she can never make excuses for him. They decide that, since their relationship is too new to say that they “love” one another, they will say that they “live” one another—the emotion between like and love. Though Holder goes along with this, he knows that he has loved Sky since they were children, when he knew her as Hope.
Chapter 34 Summary
Holder writes in the notebook to Les, telling her that he will never read her suicide letter. He vows to stop writing letters to her.
Chapter 35 Summary
Daniel has asked Holder to bring Sky over to his house for a movie. Holder—not wanting to expose Sky to Daniel’s on-again-off-again girlfriend, Sal—reluctantly agrees. Daniel and Sal make out during the movie as Holder and Sky awkwardly watch. Daniel finally gets the message to go somewhere private when Holder throws the remote at them. Left in the basement alone, Holder and Sky kiss, and she straddles him wearing a dress. When she says, “I live you, Dean Holder” (233), the words startle him because it is the first time that she has said his first name since they were children. He then begins to cry because it hurts to know that she does not remember him from the past.
Holder begins a letter to Les: “Dear all dead people who aren’t Les because I’m not writing letters to Les anymore…” (234). He goes on to tell her that he has always loved Hope, but he fell in love with Sky at Daniel’s house.
Chapter 36 Summary
A month later, Holder writes Les in a different notebook because he can’t bear to touch the notebook that holds Les’s suicide note. In the letter, he describes breaking down to Sky. Holder wanted to fight someone, but Sky forced him to the car where Holder broke down on her, as if “the entire past year of [his] life was repeatedly punching [him] in the gut and [he] just had to get it out” (236). He admitted that the fight he was arrested for the previous year was his fault. He also admitted to Sky that he was angry at Les for killing herself and that he is not yet ready to forgive her. He accidentally calls Sky by the name Hope; so that Sky does not think that Hope is another girlfriend, he dotes on her that day.
Chapters 29-36 Analysis
Hoover makes Holder’s character development more apparent in these chapters as he interacts with a wider cast of secondary characters. As Holder struggles to stay away from Sky, he controls his powerful emotions when Breckin confronts him at his locker, angry at Holder for breaking Sky’s heart. Instead of resorting to violence as Holder has in the past, he rises above the urge, knowing that Breckin is a good friend to Sky. He agrees with Breckin when Breckin says, “I feel sorry for you, because people like her don’t come along more than once. She deserves someone who realizes that” (196). This point also functions on a playfully ironic level, since Sky has in fact “come along more than one” in Holder’s life, highlighting the theme of Fated Love in Uncertain Times. Hoover further demonstrates Holder’s character development when he shows up at Breckin’s house with a birthday gift for Breckin to give Sky. Despite his friendliness toward Sky’s best friend, however, Holder refuses to tell Breckin why he called it off with Sky after seeing her bracelet in the lunchroom. As his character develops, Hoover turns Holder’s secretiveness into his primary internal conflict.
Hoover depicts both Sky and Holder Healing from Childhood Trauma in this section as their relationship develops. The secrets that Holder keeps from everyone but his dead sister—and hence the reader—come to a head when he finds the suicide letter that Les wrote to him. Unable to cope with Les’s explanation, the only thing that he can think to do is “run straight to Sky’s house because she’s the only thing in the world that can help [him] breathe again” (215). This visceral description of held and released breath highlights the role of physicality in the novel to portray feelings in place of dialogue. The scene in Chapter 33, once Holder has snuck through Sky’s window and into her bed, captures how their relationship serves for both as a means to heal. He immediately senses that she needs him as much as he needs her, and “knowing that is enough to freeze time for just a little while” (218). This briefly slows the pace of the novel as it builds towards the climax, giving the readers respite from the novel’s drama which reflects the respite that the characters find in one another. When Sky tells him she “lives” him, the feeling in-between “like and love,” Holder shows the first signs that hope is returning to him. He feels as if he doesn’t “deserve her understanding and [he] sure as hell [doesn’t] deserve the way she just made [his] heart feel” (224), yet still, he accepts her love, showing that he is on the path to healing.
Holder and Sky’s increasing familiarity both provides light relief and intensifies the rising action. This section depicts Holder and Sky’s sexual relationship as they become more familiar with one another and move past a series of “firsts.” These scenes include playful, carefree conversations between the two characters, briefly lightening the novel’s tone to portray multi-faceted dimensions of their relationship and give further respite to the reader. However, though happy together, their familiarity saddens Sky because “it hurts” that “she can be this close” to him and “not remember” him from childhood (233). The complications arising from their familiarity reinforce the idea that the novel’s suspense revolves around Holder’s character development; the rising action intensifies via his feelings about revealing Sky’s identity to her.
The Relationship Between Trauma and Violence has less of a hold on Holder by Chapter 36. In a different notebook because he refuses to go near the one with the suicide letter in it, he recounts discussing his hurt and anger at Les with Sky. Sharing his feelings, both with Les on paper and in person with Sky, helps him to move past the worst of the pain and he begins to feel as if he can stop blaming himself for Les’s death. Although Holder breaks down, he is not violent in this chapter. Holder’s evolution from “breaking down” physically and punching someone to “breaking down” emotionally suggests that he continues to heal from the trauma of his sister’s death. Hoover’s use of dialogue in place of physical violence in this chapter suggests that words are failing Holder less, highlighting his healing.
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